Arch Linux

mythus

Member

From: MS Gulf Coast

Registered: 2008-05-15

Posts: 509

Website

Re: Yet Another Pacman Gui 0.2: frontend for pacman in PyGTK+Pyalpmm

proud2beL337!!!

Not sure if you meant that in jest or just sarcastically, but in case of the latter I want to clarify.

Different distros fill different niches and appeal to different people. There are plenty of gui-based point-and-click windows-users-will-love-this distros but Arch isn't one of them, and arguing that some tools should be made that way to attract users who want such tools will only change Arch into something else.

It's like trying to introduce a McDonald's franchise in some country that's famous for it's local cuisine by arguing that it will bring more tourists. The tourists that are already there came for the local cuisine and anyone who wants McDonald's can go to any of x other countries. If the locals really want a McDonald's, then they can open one, but don't do it just to attract fat tourists who only look for McDonald's when they travel. You would rather have tourists who visit because they like the country and its culture, not because it's a copy of their own country with some nice beaches thrown in. All the latter will do is be loud and noisy, make a mess, then go somewhere else next year (or stay and demand that everything be changed to be how it is back home).

Here here! I have to quote this for truth!

I don't want another ubuntu/fedora/mandriva/openSUSE. Those are all great distros, but they are not what I am looking for. I want complete and absolute control over my own system, the ability to go into the bare bones and configure the ever living mess out of it. I don't want some fancy GUI that hides everything and asks "Are you SURE you want to do that?" when I try to edit rc.conf! And I don't want to necesarily compile every little thing either otherwise I'd use LFS, gentoo, crux, etc...

However I do have to add that occsaionally there is a time when I do fire up a gui, in my case it's been gtkpacman. I don't use it but once in a blue moon, when I am looking for something that I can't excatly remember what it was called despite using it often (bad memory problems...). Sometimes it is just faster than firing up a browser, going to arch linux/packages, and searching, and since I don't remember what the app is rightly called, using the awesome pacman search feature doesn't always work. If I could more easily search pacman with say, text editor, to get what I am looking for without the help of the gui, then I would.

So while I support the idea of making a nice gui for pacman, I do not support the idea of it becoming a mainstay or automatically installed feature, nor do I support the idea of a gui installer for arch linux itself. I actually enjoy the current method.

With all that said, nice job! I admire your desire to make something useful!

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Legends of Nor'Ova - role playing community devoted to quality forum-based and table-top role play, home of the Legends of Nor'Ova Core Rule Book and Legends of Nor'Ova: Saga of Ablution steam punk like forum based RPG

meissna

Member

Registered: 2008-12-11

Posts: 17

Re: Yet Another Pacman Gui 0.2: frontend for pacman in PyGTK+Pyalpmm

Hey invernomuto,

great to see that you made such a sweet application with the lib, I just released 0.3, with aaaaloooot of changes and features like transparent AUR integration! The API changed a lot, but it won't change that much from this point, i promise! I also had some trouble with the latest changes in libalpm/pacman, but now it looks very promising...

And by the way: I don't think you have to be a linux-newbie to use a GUI for package-management, I think it is a reasonable step for a big distribution like Arch is today, of course nothing what _everyone_ needs but, why not?

If you encounter any problems or bugs, don't hesitate to write me,

greetings
meissna